Golden Blue
by BlueEyes790
Summary: After the Doctor goes missing, Rose is back from Pete's world to find him, but she'll need the 11th Doctor's help. Bound and determined as she is to find her Doctor, Rose can't ignore this new Doctor. Things start to get tangled as they work together to find the missing Doctor and face the changes they've gone through during their time apart. S7-ish.
1. Chapter 1

**A.N.** This is just an idea I had that kind of evolved into something else. Let me know what you think. =]

* * *

"Where the hell is my husband?"

The doors to the TARDIS had just slammed open and in stormed a petite woman with flying blonde hair and fury in her – were her eyes golden?

Faces whipped around all over the console room. Amy and Rory shared shocked expressions, River looked equally mad as the blonde, and the Doctor could only stare open mouthed.

There were things the blonde woman should have been noticing. Rose should have noticed that she didn't know any of these people. Or she might have noticed how the entire interior of the TARDIS had been re-done. Or possibly that no one in the room looked even remotely aware of who she was.

None of this registered. Instead, she crossed to the console in six angry strides that left rolls of rage in her wake. Grabbing onto the man with ridiculous hair and quite a prominent chin's tweed lapels, she wrenched him down to eye level.

"Where the hell is my husband?"

His deep set hazel eyes were whirling in every possible direction, cataloging everything from her appearance, to the state of his other companions, to the undisguised anger in River's expression. Yes. This was definitely not going to be a good encounter.

"Sorry, what?"

Rose released him in disgust. "Where's the Doctor?"

"He's the Doctor." The voice came from behind them, decidedly Scottish. Rose spared a glance over her shoulder to see a red headed woman nodding in the direction of the man Rose had just been accosting.

"Who are you?" This time, the question came from her right. Flicking her attention to the side, Rose took in a woman with wild curls who was decidedly older than the rest of the occupants on the ship.

Rose crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm his wife."

Silence reigned on all sides. It belatedly occurred to Rose that she was being rather painfully unclear about everything, but that can happen when you're beyond frantic. As she was preparing to slow down and explain herself, the woman with wild hair interrupted.

"The hell you are. I'm his wife!"

Rose's brown eyes widened impossibly. She looked from the woman to the Doctor in question. Though he was standing motionless, his fingers were moving restlessly against the fabric of his trousers. This version didn't have her version's grace, but he'd managed to retain the easily readable expressions. The one he was currently wearing read: Caught.

A headache was beginning to pound its way into Rose's attention. This was really all too much. Closing her eyes, she pressed two fingertips to her temples, rubbing hard to try and ease the pain. Opening her eyes, she scanned the faces surrounding her.

"Look, I don't give a damn who you are or what you are. I just want my husband." Fixing a scorching gaze on the Doctor she added, "And if you don't help me, I'm going to get very unpleasant."

"Rose," there was awe in his voice, but it did nothing to abate the ire flaming through her veins. "Your eyes."

She blinked, held out her hands for inspection, and gave a frustrated growl. "It's nothing. Now. My husband?"

The Doctor ran a hand through his messy locks in an incredibly familiar gesture. This incarnation seemed much more similar to his last than his tenth had been to his ninth. Had they been meeting under different circumstances, Rose might have asked him about that. As it was, she wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of here and find her husband.

"Why do you think I would know where he is? I can't even understand how you're here." His accent was so much softer than it had ever been, scholarly sounding actually. This version of him probably would have left her in the shop, figuring she was too stupid to bring along, never having completed her A levels and all.

"Because he went off in that stupid TARDIS Donna gave us. Finally matured, didn't it, and he's off running. Now he's gone. It's your fault, so find him." Somehow her hands were on his shoulders and she was pressing him back against the console.

"Really, Rose," his hazel eyes shone earnestly, "you're eyes are golden!"

Rose released him, scrubbing one hand against her face, frustration raining down on her from every angle. "Help me!" she shouted, gold eyes blazing.

And out came the sonic. Incredibly different from the last one she had seen. There was the familiar squeaky hum and then he was scanning her, up and down with the green light. "I'm not sure what it is, Rose," he murmured, squinting with barely there eyebrows as he concentrated on the sonic.

She smacked it out of his hand; the sonic went clattering to the now glass floor, rolling to a halt at the Scottish girl's feet. "There is nothing wrong with me! The gold is the Bad Wolf, that's all, it's reacting to being this close to the TARDIS core again."

Panicked eyes took her in. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Of course I am. Now, about my husband, Doctor?"

There was cough from behind them. They peered together back at the young man with the long face. "Uhm, sorry to interrupt. Rory by the way, and this is thrilling, but, just for clarification, who _exactly_ is your husband?"

"The Doctor," they answered in unison.

"Right," Rory drew out the r sound. "And, which Doctor would that be?"

"The tenth and half," Rose said.

The eleventh Doctor frowned. "That's what you're calling him? Ten and half? He's not even a proper regeneration. Needed Donna's DNA to get the process started –"

"Help me find him," Rose interrupted, forcing herself to sound as calm and in control as possible.

"Uh, excuse me," now it was the Scottish girl. Rose turned around again, feeling her headache sneaking back up on her. She really hadn't expected all these companions, well, especially not a wife that wasn't her. "You said he left in the TARDIS, yeah?"

"Yes. The newly finished growing TARDIS."

"Well, when_ this_ Doctor's TARDIS finished growing, he said he'd be back in five minutes and I didn't see him for another twelve years. How long has yours been gone?"

"A month."

"Right, well, maybe you just need to give him more time."

"Don't be ridiculous," Rose snapped. "I'm not waiting twelve years for my husband to reappear."

There were coughs from all in the room. "I waited two thousand years for my wife," Rory said, slinging an arm around the Scottish woman.

"I keep waiting for mine," the wild hair woman added. "The fate of marrying a time traveler."

Rose pressed her hands against her temples. These people were all idiots. "My husband is in a time machine. He can't regenerate, he really shouldn't be on his own, and I am now in this time machine. We will find him, because that is what you owe me, Doctor," she said this last solely to him.

He dropped his hazel eyes from her gaze, not quite able to meet the anger and hurt shining there. "Rose, I don't know what you want me to do."

"Track him down! Have the TARDIS look for another TARDIS. Do something Spock!" Her voice was rising with every bitten out word until it reached a painful decibel and tears sprang into her eyes. She didn't want to cry, not in front of this Doctor, the one who had abandoned her and given her everything at once. Not in front of this Doctor who looked nothing like her Doctor. Not in front of this army of people who were giving her a migraine.

"Rose?" The Doctor's voice seemed to come from far away. His cold fingertips tilted her chin up to look into her face. "Rose, I need you to come with me, okay?"

"No!" she said fiercely, the word sounding so strange to her ears. "I am the Bad Wolf and I demand you find my husband." And those weren't her words, she hadn't even thought them, but they were coming from her lips and there was nothing she could do to stop them.

"I know," he said quietly, one hand finding its way to hers. "Come with me and we'll find him."

Her hand seized his and the Doctor was off, pulling her along after him in a jerky walk that didn't have any of the grace of either of his former selves that she had known.

The rest of the group made to follow after them, but the Doctor put an end to that. "I need you to stay here. River see if there's anything you can think of that would let us track the half me."

They were moving up a flight of stairs then down a hallway and finally arrived at a white walled room with a gurney in the middle. The Doctor nudged Rose in its direction and she stood beside it. Then he was clattering around the room, all elbows and knees, as he gathered random supplies, depositing them on the table beside the gurney.

She reached out, placing her hand on his shoulder and the Doctor froze instantly. "My Doctor." Her voice was ethereal.

The Doctor turned slowly around, worry deep in his hazel eyes. "Rose, my Rose, are you in there?"

She leaned forward, golden eyes glowing. "My Doctor."

"Rose, I can't," he whispered, "not this time. These people need me and they need me as this Doctor. I can't . . ." but his words trailed off and he was brushing the blonde hair from her cheeks.

She closed her eyes at his touch, the gold that scared him so much disappearing from view. "I need my Doctor."

"I am your Doctor," he promised. Then he was leaning in as well, because the only thing he had ever truly wanted, the one thing he really did try to do, was save Rose Tyler, protect her, keep her safe, because she was too beautiful, body and soul, and too purely human to ever lose.

His lips were a hair's breadth away from hers when the door to the MedBay swung open, jolting him backwards. Rose's golden eyes snapped open as well.

"I've got the TARDIS tracking the other TARDIS." It was River, looking for all the world like a hell god. "Now get the hell away from that woman, Doctor, because you are my husband, no matter what knock off she married."

The Doctor was fumbling helplessly with his bow tie, stuck between the two woman he would die for, a permanent death too, not a regenerational one. "River, this isn't what it looks like, Rose is – well, a long time ago she –"

"Doctor!" River shouted, pointing to the girl in question.

The Doctor whirled around to find Rose in the middle of fainting. His arms shot out and caught hold of her right before she would have collapsed. Hefting her upwards, he laid her out on the gurney.

"Rose! Rose, look at me," he pleaded frantically, one hand pulling out the sonic screwdriver while the other pressed against her chest to feel her heartbeat.

There was a soft moan, then brown eyes fluttered open, flecks of gold caught amongst the irises. "Doctor?"

"Yes, Rose, it's me, how are you feeling? Do you feel alright? What's going on? What happened?"

"Doctor," River interrupted, standing beside him. "You might want to give her a chance to answer the first question before you move onto the next five."

His wobbly smile was sheepish. "Right. Rose, how are you –"

"Please, please help me," Rose pleaded, tears crowding in on her eyes again. "I need him. He's all I've got."

There was a wild moment where River and the Doctor couldn't be entirely sure who Rose was talking to, River or the Doctor. It was preposterous, of course, she had come on board demanding to know what happened to her husband, but for that instant, secrets that had been meant to stay buried were uncovered and laid bare between River and _her_ husband.

"We'll help you, Rose," and it was River who spoke. Because she knew that desperation, she knew what it was to be separated from the Doctor.

The Doctor's hazel eyes darted from one woman to the other, then around the room in general, his fingers moving constantly at his side. His energy was pent up, he needed to know what was going on with Rose, why was she glowing gold, the only other time she had done that . . .

"It's the TARDIS," Rose said quietly, her eyelids fluttering shut.

"But how?" he asked, not noticing as River faded from the MedBay and back into the console room.

"Bad Wolf," she repeated and he could hear the exhaustion in her voice. He fidgeted more rapidly, feeling awful for keeping her up but knowing he needed to get this sorted before she could rest.

"No, Rose, I took the Bad Wolf out of you, I saved you."

One brown eye peered up at him. "I create myself." One trembling pale hand swept in a downward gesture to herself. "You can take the TARDIS out of the girl, but you can't take the girl out of the TARDIS."

"I – I don't understand." He thrust a frustrated hand through his hair, rumpling it attractively.

"It's in me, she's in me, we are one, you took out the part that was too much, but the part that was just enough, the part that I created within myself, that remained. Dormant, but there. It's been flaring up lately, with Ten and Half, because we're both half or something. It happened when I went into our TARDIS for the first time, all those memories, impossible ones that I shouldn't have had came flaring back to life. You never explain it in simple English."

There was an accusation behind her words and the Doctor tried not to feel too chuffed that she'd referred to him and his half as the same man. Because if she loved the half than she –

"How do I fix it?"

A sleepy smile curved her mouth, the mouth he couldn't even begin to admit how much he missed. "Nothing to fix. Just got a little too angry. You should know, Oncoming Storm."

The Doctor felt as if he'd been jolted with electricity. He sometimes forgot that she had known him better than his other companions. She had been at his regeneration, she had been the last person he saw for his past two. She knew him, truly knew him, not his past, but him. She knew him better than even River claimed to, knew all of his dark secrets and still loved him.

"I – I'm not like that anymore." It was a blatant lie, but he wanted her to believe he was a better man than the one she had known.

A weak laugh assured him he had failed miserably. "Well, you definitely didn't used to stutter quite so often. Maybe a repeat of 'What? What?' when things got too hairy, but none of this 'I – I.'"

"Yes, well, you seem quite on your way to recovery," he answered frowning.

Before he could leave, her brown eyes landed on him. "I never thought I'd see you again."

"Not exactly who you were expecting, I presume?"

"No," and his heart dropped in apprehension he hadn't realized he felt, "you are always exactly who I'm expecting." She smiled at him.

The Doctor wasn't entirely certain what to make of that or the strangely familiar things it made him feel. He wanted to push those feelings down and away. This was Rose and she was married and she wasn't his anymore, or at least, not this version's and beside all of that, he had River. He lo- He cared deeply for River.

"Rest, Rose. I'm going to look for that husband of yours."

She closed her eyes again. "Thank you, Doctor." Her hand reached out and brushed his. Sparks shot from his fingertips up his arm and directly to his heart. Hurriedly, and with much tugging at his bow tie, he left the MedBay.


	2. Chapter 2

**A.N.** Thanks so much for the positive feedback to the first chapter =] All the follows and favorites were amazing & the reviews were lovely!

* * *

It was an hour later when Rose came out of the MedBay, exhaustion abated, and her brown eyes sparking once more, but thankfully without the gold. The Doctor looked up from his fiddling at the console to find that gaze settled unpleasantly on him.

"Where is he?"

"You keep asking that," the Scottish woman grumbled. Rose didn't spare a glance in her direction.

"We're tracking him," the Doctor answered. "Might take a while, his TARDIS is behaving erratically, but it would, of course, being new and –"

"I could take you there," River interrupted.

Rose's attention flashed to her. "What do you mean?"

"No," the Doctor said sternly, straightening up from the console. "Absolutely not."

"Why not?" River asked. "It's perfectly safe, you've seen me do it multiple times."

"You are not doing it with Rose."

River's expression displayed a spasm of pain that she quickly hid. Rose narrowed her gaze. She really didn't want to be involved in any of this. She didn't care about this. She only cared about her husband.

Or at least, that's what she kept telling herself, she was trying to use her anger to bolster her defenses against the Doctor, because he was as gorgeous as ever and closer to her age now than he had ever been. Figured, then, that he would marry a woman who looked to be twenty years his senior. Of course, age meant nothing compared to his but . . .

Rose tried to tune back into the argument storming between the Doctor and River. "It's a vortex manipulator for god's sake," River was saying, shaking her head in disbelief at the Doctor.

Rose's attention perked. "Like Jack's?"

The Doctor swung around to look at her. "Yes and you remember how unpleasant that was."

"If it gets me to the Doctor, then I don't care."

"I am the Doctor!"

All eyes landed on him. He fidgeted with his bow tie, then moved to fidget with the console. Yes, that really hadn't come out how he wanted it to. Now it sounded like he wanted Rose to stay here with him instead of return to her husband. Which of course was absurd because he didn't want that. Not in the least. Not at all. Not even a little.

River slowly turned from her husband to the blonde girl in front of her. "Doesn't matter what he says, I can take you if you wish."

Rose cut a look to the Doctor, bent over the console, unruly hair falling into his face. Her heart twisted in her chest. "Yeah. That's what I want."

The Doctor froze, then carried on with determination as if he couldn't hear the conversation that was so purposefully excluding him.

"Right then, when you're ready."

"I'm ready now," Rose said, crossing to River's side. And she didn't consider giving the Doctor a goodbye because he hadn't given her one either of the two times he had left her which certainly meant he didn't deserve one now. She ignored the absolutely painful pinching of her heart at knowing she was losing him again.

River flipped open the watch on her wrist, very reminiscent of Jack's and began typing in her desired destination and whatever else she needed. Rose's eyes remained trained on the Doctor, despite her desperate desire to ignore him as he was so steadfastly ignoring her.

"Alright, be back, Sweetie," River said to her husband. The Doctor responded with an indecipherable grumble. She clasped Rose's hand in hers and prepared to leave.

Rose pinched her eyes close, sucking in a deep breath. She heard River click the watch.

"No! Rose, don't do this!" And the Doctor was throwing himself across the room, his hand landing over hers and River's just as they blinked out of the console room of one TARDIS and into that of the other.

The three of them landed sprawled on the floor of the other TARDIS a jumble of limbs and swear words as they each dragged themselves apart. River was shaking out her hair and staring daggers at her husband. "What the hell was that for? You could have gotten us killed!"

But the Doctor wasn't paying attention to her, not even looking at her, instead, he was scanning Rose with a pat of hands to ensure that nothing was broken, that she was perfectly fine. And Rose was trying to push him off, slapping away hands that just kept returning to their patting.

Finally, Rose threw an elbow in the Doctor's direction and dodged away from his ministrations. "Doctor! Doctor!" she called, running around the console room and disappearing down a hallway.

The Doctor stared after her, wavering on his indecision to follow after her or – He turned to face his wife. This really _really _wasn't turning out well. He could see the pain in the tight expression of River's face, in the fists balled at her sides.

"River, really, it's just –"

"You never talked about her," she interrupted. She was good at that, interrupting before he could start rambling. "All this time and you never said a word. But she pops up out of literal nowhere and you're falling all over yourself for her. So tell me, Doctor, who exactly is she?"

"She's – she's . . ." God, Rose had been right about the stuttering. He was going to have to work on that. In the meantime, River was still waiting for an answer. "She's Rose Tyler." It was entirely inadequate while summing up the situation perfectly.

"Yes, I caught her name, Doctor, with the number of times you were saying it with a disgusting amount of boyish awe. But what I don't understand is who she is to you."

The Doctor knew with absolute certainty that there was positively no way to answer that correctly. To answer that without upsetting River. He could lie, say Rose was no one, just an old companion, but River wouldn't buy that, not for a second.

So his eyes fell to his boots while his fingers tugged uselessly at the sides of his bow tie.

Then Rose burst back in, chest heaving from having just run through the entire TARDIS. "He's not here! He's not here!"

Her brown eyes were wide as she looked to the Doctor for answers he simply didn't have. His straight shoulder sunk down and he was left feeling utterly useless.

Rose shot her look of pleading to River who looked at the younger woman with sympathy. "We'll look outside, Rose. Maybe he went to explore a bit. The Doctor can stay here in case he returns."

Rose nodded her feverish agreement, the golden glow slowly returning to her eyes. "Yeah, good, look around for him." She bounded toward the door, wrenching it open as River cast one last injured look at her husband.

The Doctor watched both of them leave, itching to go with them, to ensure nothing happened to Rose, but he knew how capable River was. She could handle anything they came up against and Rose herself was quite capable, even if he was always desperately trying to look out for her.

* * *

As soon as they were out the door of the TARDIS, this one just as blue and police boxy as the other, Rose turned to River. She took a second to notice that they were in a jungle. An honest to god jungle, with great towering trees, and masses of animals squawking all around them.

River gazed down at the younger woman, knowing she had something to say. Squaring her shoulders just slightly, Rose said, "I'm sorry."

River's brows furrowed in confusion, her mouth pursing. "For what?"

"For showing up like this, for dragging you away, for causing a mess. I just . . ." she trailed off, shaking her head. "I just didn't know who else to go to. I have to have him back, River. You are probably the only other person who can understand that. I've stood on a beach twice and lost him for all time, I can't do it a third time. I can't."

River reached out and squeezed Rose's shoulder reassuringly. "We'll find your Doctor, don't worry. And you don't have to apologize. Any mess was made by the Doctor, not you."

Rose bobbed her head in acknowledgement, then shifted her attention to the jungle around them. "So do you think I can go with just shouting as loudly as humanely possible and trying to get him to hear us or are we more likely to be eaten by something that way?"

River laughed. "Well, I once defaced a pyramid to get his attention, so I can hardly judge."

Now Rose was laughing. "Wow, wish I could have seen that."

River smiled. "It was all rather melodramatic, but the Doctor tends to be so." She lifted her shoulder in a shrug that had Rose laughing even harder.

Together, they began to walk forward through the jungle, their eyes scanning everything around them for any sign of a human presence. The silence wasn't pleasant exactly, but it wasn't the worst silence Rose had endured either.

There were levels of silence that one learned to deal with when traveling with the Doctor. There was the running for our lives silence. There was a where in the name of all that exists are we silence. There was the this is impossibly bad silence. There was even he really did not just lick that silence.

Still, River was going out of her way to be helpful and Rose felt she deserved better than the we've lost someone and they could be in mortal danger silence. And therefore, she decided to break the silence.

"So you married him, right?"

"Mhm."

"So you know his name?"

"Mhm."

"Isn't it ridiculous?"

River froze, turning surprised eyes to the girl beside her. "You know his name?"

"Well, yeah, I married mine."

River relaxed. "Right, of course. And yes, it's quite the name. Gallifrey must have had quite the harried nursery schools."

Rose grinned. "To be sure. I mean, he tells me, during the vows, and I'm like trying not to crack up and be like, 'you're joking, mate' and he's getting all suspicious because to be fair, it's not very convincing when a giggle gets through and of course the whole family's watching us."

River listened as Rose prattled on about her wedding. It was nothing, absolutely nothing, like River's. River didn't have to guess that the Doctor hadn't told Rose moments before it that he didn't want to marry her or that he hadn't married Rose in an alternate universe that no longer existed which basically made their entire marriage void. Or the simple fact that at their wedding he hadn't told her his name, he whispered the secret of the Teselcta, that it was until later, much later than now that she would learn his name.

River glanced at the blonde haired girl beside her. Was that why the Doctor loved her so much? Because of this youth, because she could move forward through time and not just bump into the Doctor as River tended to do? Because even when Rose was glowing golden, she was still light and innocence?

"River?" Rose's voice prodded her away from her musings.

"Yes, sorry, got a little caught up is all," River flustered to cover her distraction.

Around them, the jungle was eerily quiet and Rose really felt that didn't bode well for them. Add to that the obvious strain between River and her Doctor, it was just not shaping up to be the best day that Rose had ever had. It had already been the worst month, she shuddered to think how much worse things could possibly get.

"How did you get to the TARDIS? The Doctor seemed to think that was quite impossible." River pushed aside the foliage in front of them, blazing forward.

Rose followed close behind, her eyes skittering over the greenery for any sign of pinstrips or a brown overcoat. "That was really all Bad Wolf."

"And Bad Wolf is?"

"The Doctor was going to die when I first met him, it was about a year into our travels together and we had a situation in the future that no good could ever come of. He sent me back to my time to save me, but I couldn't let him die, I'm sure you understand that. So I broke into the TARDIS which is amazingly hard to do and I looked into her soul. The Bad Wolf was born of that. I took the TARDIS into me and she took me into her and we saved the Doctor or at least, we saved him from dying permanently."

It was a sad little speech, with no pauses or hesitations, as if Rose had been waiting for someone to ask her about the Bad Wolf for years. She had it all prepared, all ready to share, but no one had ever asked. River knew what that felt like. To carry something with you, something that weighed on you, and have no one ask, not even the person closest to you, not even the person you loved.

"And now?" she asked.

"Bad Wolf comes out when I need her to and defies all logic and defies all conceptions of what should be impossible. Though my husband already did that since he shouldn't be able to jump universes. I think I'll consider divorcing him once we find him. Would serve him right for abandoning me for the third time. Well, his first, but –" she broke off with a grimace.

River felt she could quite understand that grimace. "Men, they are the impossible things."

"Quite right," Rose agreed through tight lips.

They continued to search the jungle for the next hour, but nothing turned up, and with every passing minute, Rose seemed to shine a brighter gold. River was worried. Rose deserved to find her Doctor, but it wasn't seeming likely that they would. It also didn't make sense that he would just abandon his TARDIS.

"Let's head back, maybe the boys have gotten together and are wrestling it out over whether or not bow ties are cool." River turned them back through the jungle.

Rose lifted one dark brow. "Yes. That bow tie. I wasn't really prepared for that. I mean, it took long enough to get used to the overcoat of my current doctor and that jumper my first doctor wore." She shook her head.

"At least it's much better than the fez."

"The what?" Rose turned to her companion with wide eyes.

River smirked. "Don't worry. I blasted it into oblivion."

"Blasted it?"

"Mhm." River took the sonic gun from her belt and showed it to Rose.

"And he doesn't mind?"

"The gun? No. Why do you ask?"

Rose shrugged, a calculatedly casual gesture. "My Doctors were rather vehemently opposed to guns. Things change, I suppose."

River was silent, their boots crunching through the undergrowth as they made their slow progress out of the jungle. She had met Rose's Doctor, the incarnation Rose was seeking out the half of, whatever that meant, and River really did need to talk to the Doctor about that. He hadn't been exactly fond of her gun then but he hadn't forbidden it either. Rose was right that things changed. But whatever the Doctor felt for Rose, that didn't seem to have changed at all. River frowned.


	3. Chapter 3

**A.N.** Thanks to everyone for the favorites and follows! And especially thank you for the reviews which are totally awesome to get!

* * *

When they arrived back at the TARDIS, the sky above was quickly fading to a bright purple as if night was falling on this obscure jungle they had landed in. Rose walked ahead of River, her anxiety carrying her faster than her companion's displeasure with the entire situation.

Rose wrenched open the door and shouted for the Doctor. There was a muffled shout in response to this along with a plume of smoke emitting from beneath the grating of the console. Rose fell to her knees, fanning off the smoke as she desperately tried to discern which Doctor was beneath the console.

"Doctor?" she asked, her eyes watering as the acrid smoke inflamed them.

A grease smudge face emerged, but it was not the one she had been hoping to see. "Did you find him?" the Doctor asked, removing the goggles from his deep set eyes.

Dejectedly, Rose stood up. "No." Reaching out one hand, she helped the Doctor out from beneath the grating. "What are you doing under there anyway? He's going to kill you if you bugger something up."

The Doctor gaped in horror. "It's the TARDIS, Rose! I've been with her longer than anything. I could in no way 'bugger her up.'"

Both Rose and River raised skeptical eyebrows. "Yes, of course, Sweetie," River said patronizingly, walking around him to look at the console. "This ones not like yours though."

"Actually –" the Doctor started to say but Rose interrupted.

"Yes, it is. It looked like this for the two years I was with the Doctor. I'd never seen the one I landed in with you lot."

River's gaze shot from Rose to her husband who was busy pretending to be preoccupied with fiddling with bits of the console. "Two years?"

"Mhm," Rose hummed. She hopped up onto the jump seat, hands clasped in her lap, looking impossibly young. It occurred to River that Rose couldn't be more than twenty-six years old. That put her a lot closer to what age the Doctor looked than River. And though surely that meant nothing, it left River with an uneasy feeling.

"Right then," Rose was saying, the gold having faded to a gentle tone in her eyes. "Thanks so much for getting me here, I really appreciate it and I'm sincerely sorry for having wrecked any havoc and disrupted, for apparently not the first time, Rio plans. It was lovely seeing you all, give my best to Rory, he seems particularly fantastic." She waved.

The Doctor stared at her. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Rose's felt shock shoot through her. The Doctor did not swear, not even gentle little swearing. Well, the ninth doctor often swore in a variety of different alien languages, but never anything she could understand. Really! And with a bow tie! You'd expect better manners. Maybe it was River's influence, what with the gun totting and the large hair. Not that there was anything wrong with either but –

"I'm talking about you leaving. And River too of course, since she's your ride," Rose said, cutting off her own inner ramble, obviously a bad habit she'd picked up from the Doctor.

"And what? Leave you here?" The Doctor frowned darkly, a look shared by both his previous selves that bespoke the fury of the Oncoming Storm. Rose's eyes shimmered golden in response. "Do you even know where you are, Rose?"

"Doesn't matter," she said with finality. "This is where the Doctor is and I'm not leaving until he's with me. So, you see, it doesn't matter where I am. We could be back on Krop Tor, but I'd stay there, with the Beast and Toby, I'd stay because he was there and I'm waiting for him."

Her golden gaze was boring into his hazel one, offering absolutely not compromise and challenging him not to remember exactly what she was talking about. _Tell Rose I – Oh, she knows_. Quite.

"Rose. You are not staying here. In case you haven't noticed, you are on the alien planet of Savoh which has a very hostile population of humanoids that are distinctly tribal, blend meticulously in with their surroundings, and have a passion for poison darts."

"Sounds like a fantastic time," she said brightly, overemphasizing the fantastic.

"You're not staying here." He glared at her, barely there eyebrows descending upon his scowling features.

"No, Doctor, _you're_ not staying here." Her golden gaze narrowed in on him, she could feel Bad Wolf beginning to take over, and she fought it back as best she could; she didn't want Bad Wolf defending her, she wanted it to be her words that sent the Doctor on his way, where he belonged, in the other TARDIS.

"River," she looked over to the other woman for the first time since they'd re-entered the TARDIS, "would you please take your husband home?"

River looked from one party to the other. While a part of her wanted badly to abscond with her husband and leave all traces of this powerful blonde girl behind them, the other part of her, the part of her that was purely River, daughter of Amy and Rory Williams, knew that it was not the right thing to do.

"The Doctor's right, Rose. Savoh is dangerous. It's bad enough that your Doctor is out there on his own. You shouldn't be here alone either."

Rose's eyes flared golden the way they had when she had begun to speak as someone who distinctly did not sound like her. River hurried onward. "But it's your TARDIS and your rescue mission. The Doctor isn't going to be satisfied until he knows your safe, so let us set up camp beside you until we find your Doctor."

Pushing back Bad Wolf as it attempted to claw its way to the surface, Rose thought over River's proposition. It wasn't what she wanted, because she did want them to leave. Well, actually, she rather liked River even if she had married the Doctor. And there was the not so small part of her that was helplessly rejoicing at being with the Doctor again.

But there was also the part of her that wanted to find her husband on her own, who didn't want to deal with the pain of seeing the Doctor again, seeing him with these people, knowing how much time had passed since he'd left her on that beach again. Then, there was also the bigger, much more important, part of her that just desperately wanted the Doctor back and if these people were offering to help her, then no way could she say no. There was nothing she wouldn't do to get him back.

"Fine. But you make sure the Doctor stays on his ship and stops fiddling with mine." Rose leapt down from the seat and walked around the console to stare the Doctor down.

His scowl darkened. "Your TARDIS?"

Rose dipped her head to the side, arms fisted tightly over her chest. "Marriage, equal properties rights. Besides, Donna gave it to us both and you know it."

"Come on, Doctor," River said, pulling at his elbow before the pair could get in another squabble. "We need to get back to Rory and Amy before Amy panics and starts trying to fly the TARDIS."

His gaze stayed stuck on Rose. "You can get the TARDIS, River, you know how to fly her."

She froze. "What? You want me to fly the TARDIS without you?"

"Not the first time you've done it," he said, not looking at her.

Rose felt fury running down her limbs. Why couldn't he just leave her alone? Yes, she had barged in on him, but that didn't give him the right to stick around and try to control what was going on. He might be the Doctor but he wasn't, in the strictest sense, her Doctor.

Which is when it finally hit her. He wasn't strictly her Doctor, he was the Doctor and the Doctor had never taken well to fighting with her. Nothing got resolved by it and they could both be appallingly stubborn when it came to fighting. So maybe, yelling at him to leave wasn't the way to get things done.

Rose tucked her hair behind her ear. "Okay."

The Doctor's eyes brightened. "Okay?"

"Yeah," she nodded. As she spoke, the gold faded completely from her irises.

"Okay, what?" River asked, frustrated.

The Doctor finally turned to her. "You pilot the TARDIS here, I'll wait with Rose." He leaned towards her, his lips skirting across River's cheek bone.

River could feel Rose's gaze sharp on them, and she also knew that the Doctor had kissed her so innocently because of that. It was dangerous ground that the three of them were playing on. Whatever securities River had had about her relationship with the Doctor, like even though he sometimes acted as if he couldn't stand the sight of her she knew him better than anyone ever had and he had to love her because of that, were being very swiftly disintegrated.

So in a moment of anxiety, she reeled the Doctor to her, hands on the back of his head, and kissed him as passionately, territorially, and desperately as she could. River felt his arms flail at his sides before finding purchase on her hips. He was kissing her back, his lips smashed to hers, but then he was shoving her away, his eyes frantic as he looked not to her but to Rose.

Rose, who had watched the whole awkward exchange from little more than three feet away. Her lips pressed together, eyebrows sky high. It was awkward, really awkward. Because he was the Doctor and she loved him, but she certainly wasn't this one's wife and River certainly was, but the Doctor was looking to Rose as if he had betrayed her and the whole thing was just awkward.

"I'm – " Rose started, feeling she really should say something. A deep breath; focus on resolving the awkward. "River, lovely to meet you. I'm going to change."

And with that, Rose turned on her heel and hightailed it to her bedroom. Well, the bedroom she shared with the Doctor, which was positively wonderful, except that he wasn't here and everything was a mess and Bad Wolf was flaring up more than she ever had.

With these thoughts, Rose ran the last two hallways to the bedroom. She threw open the door, then fell back against it, sealing out the Doctor and River. Hopefully now they could properly sort out the mess between them without her standing there with her heart doing something that felt a lot like breaking but couldn't possibly be because she loved her Doctor and this wasn't really him.

The lights in the bedroom flickered on, courtesy of the TARDIS, exposing walls painted TARDIS blue with an oversized bed in the center of the room covered in the softest pillows and sheets. There were a cherry oak dresser and vanity against the opposite wall of the bed. A large closet on the left wall with a full length mirror beside it. The right wall had a loveseat that was modeled exactly after the one from her flat at the Powell Estate, next to it was a bookshelf that held all of the Doctor's favorite books along with hers and pictures of their friends and family.

The dresser was covered in more photos, these from their wedding, Rose looking resplendent in white and the Doctor handsomely filling out his tux, his ever present Chucks proudly on display as his wedding footwear. It was so clearly their room, Rose and the Doctor, as decorated by the one who knew them best, the TARDIS. And though it was a baby TARDIS, it was still their TARDIS, the one the Doctor had stolen centuries ago, because they were born of the same core and retained the same memories. This TARDIS was just as much the TARDIS as Ten and a Half was the Doctor.

Rose wandered over to the closet, pulling the doors open. Her fingertips trailed over the various suits inside, most of these sans pinstripes. It seemed Ten and a Half was into solids rather than stripes. Rose liked the distinctions between the Doctors, they were the same, but he was hers and he went out of his way to show her that.

Except for this, for running off without her, for leaving her behind once more, for breaking her heart. Rose stepped into the closet, folding herself down beneath the hanging suits and the other half of the clothes that were hers. She scrunched her knees up to her chest and rested her forehead on them.

"Where are you?" she asked, her words brittle. "Doctor, I need you."

* * *

The Doctor stared down the hallway where Rose had disappeared. Well, not really disappeared, run away from him was the more accurate term, the more accurate term which scared him to death. Wheeling around, he glared at River, standing there, not having moved an inch since the kiss. "River, I need to find Rose. There's a lot we need to sort out. I thought you would have gone back to the TARDIS already as I asked –"

"Right. That's what you want. Me to leave so you can be alone with Rose," River said coldly.

"Well, yes. I'm fairly sure that's what I said, River," the Doctor said in annoyance, one hand raking through his hair.

He couldn't understand why River was being so difficult. She usually did as he asked, even if she had to sass him before she actually did it. But now she wasn't, she was just standing here as if they had all the time in the world and not as if his half-self could show up at any moment and run off with Rose.

"You married me," River said quietly, her expression heartbreakingly sorrowful.

The Doctor's eyes darted over her, trying to figure out why exactly River was upset. Well, of course she was mad that he hadn't wanted to make a show of kissing her in front of Rose. But what was he supposed to do? He cared about Rose, he didn't want to hurt her feelings by kissing River, she might get the wrong idea and –

"I'm your wife, Doctor, not Rose."

"Actually –"

"No," River said sharply. "Your other self married Rose. You didn't marry Rose, you married me."

"In a timeline that never existed!" the Doctor burst out frustrated. He stalked around the console, his hands running over bits and bobs he hadn't seen in well over two transformations of the console room.

River clenched her eyes shut. It felt as if he had physically punched her and for a moment she was sure she wouldn't be able to breathe. "Is that what you truly believe?" It came out as barely more than a whisper.

The Doctor froze, mouth hanging open, as the implications of what he had said caught up with him. His eyes shot to River who was still as stone, her eyes shut tight against him. "Oh, River. No, no that's not –" He moved toward her, picking up her hands in his, holding them gently. "You know how I feel about you."

Her eyes opened slowly as she shook her head in negation. "I don't, though, Doctor. You've never said. You know I love you, more than anything, more than myself. But I haven't the faintest idea how you feel about me. And yet, I can tell quite clearly how you feel about Rose, not _felt_, but _feel _about her."

The Doctor's hearts hammered in his chest. This was not going well, not well at all. How could he answer River's question when he didn't know the answer himself? He depended on River, needed her desperately in a way he hadn't needed many people before. But that wasn't what she wanted to hear, that wasn't what she deserved.

And he did care about her, deeply, it was only that she wanted more from him than he was willing to give, than he was willing to say. It was true, they had been married in a time that didn't exist, had never existed. She had almost ended the universe to keep him alive, and she couldn't see that that scared him. The Doctor didn't want someone endangering the universe for him, he wanted someone who was willing to sacrifice him and her own life to save the universe.

"River, I . . ." He started another unfinished sentence with a very similar pretext to one he had uttered before. And that girl, that girl he had uttered that sentence for, she was on this ship, yards away at most and he needed to be with her, he had to.

"I'm sorry, River. I need to see Rose." The Doctor dropped River's hands, turning away from her and walking down the familiar but unknown hallways of this TARDIS that wasn't his.


	4. Chapter 4

**A.N.** Hello! I want to start by clarifying something that Kate's comment brought to my attention. So in the context of this story, 10.5's TARDIS found a way back into the 'normal' universe, and Rose, through Bad Wolf's capabilities, found a way back as well; everyone is in the 'normal' universe from the first chapter on, not hopping back and forth between universes. Thanks so much to Kate for pointing out that I hadn't made it clear enough! And thanks to everyone for reviewing, following, and favorite-ing.

* * *

"Rose?" It was a tentative question, asked in quiet tones that rang with an accent Rose hadn't entirely gotten used to yet.

There was a muffled noise and the Doctor followed it into the brightly lit room. No, not just a room. A bedroom. Her bedroom. Their bedroom, with a bed and books and sofa and – and pictures. Everywhere, pictures. Of her, of him, of Mickey the Idiot, of Jackie, of the other Pete, of a little boy with a shock of blonde hair the same color Rose always dyed hers, of people he'd never seen before. And in every photo, these people were smiling, arms wrapped around each other.

It was entirely, utterly, completely domestic, and he, The Doctor, in that moment, was jealous of it.

The Doctor lifted one picture after the other, devouring the images and ignoring the ache in the center of his chest that seeing them but not having been a part of them made him feel. Rose had called his other self her husband and here was the proof. Picture after picture of Rose in a beautiful white dress, her shoulders bare, her hair longer like it had been when he first met her, curled elegantly. She looked divine, more beautiful than any woman he had seen in over one thousand years of living.

"Oh, Rose," he whispered, one finger tracing her shining face through the cool glass, her hand was clenched tightly to that of his previous face who was wearing a dark blue tux and those awful Chucks, smiling like a complete idiot into the camera, his hair wild. This is what he had missed by staying in this world. He had missed marrying Rose Tyler.

His hearts pinched painfully and he half thought he might regenerate from the sheer pain of seeing everything he had given up. Everything he had had to give up because of the Metacrisis and the Doctor Donna. Everything that had led to him changing into this man, who didn't want to hold others' hands, who got married in timelines that didn't exist, who was more selfish than he could ever admit to.

Nimble fingers slipped between his, squeezing tight then holding on. The Doctor's eyes fluttered shut. He knew those fingers, he knew every contour of the hand that held his; never, in all of the years he would live would he ever forget what it felt like to hold hands with Rose Tyler.

"You looked dead handsome, even Mum thought so," Rose said. "Though she did try to physically force you out of the Chucks. I liked them though, they were so you; even doing something as horrifyingly domestic as getting married, you still got to be you." Rose spoke to the picture, not having the heart to look at the Doctor. She knew her face would be blotchy, her make-up smeared from the cry she'd had in the closet, surrounded by his clothes and familiar smell but never farther away from him.

"Would have looked better with a bow tie," the Doctor muttered, opening his eyes once more.

Rose giggled, the sound not convincingly happy, but on the way to recovery. "Dunno, I don't think you're much into bow ties."

The Doctor picked up the next picture, one of the wedding party at the reception hall. Rose and the Doctor in the center of the table, Rose's smile impossibly wide as the Doctor kissed her cheek, one hand lifting a champagne glass in a toast. Unfamiliar faces filled three seats on either side of them and the Doctor wondered who these people were that he would never know.

"It's not champagne. Banana Daquiri." Rose pointed to the glass in question. "You were completely adamant about it even though I said it was in bad taste. We had an awful row about it."

"Why?" the Doctor asked, glancing down at her. He wasn't as tall as his last self, but he had six inches on Rose. She had always been the perfect height for him.

"Why?" Rose lifted an eyebrow. "Because of Madame de Pampers."

"Pampers?"

"Yeah," Rose sniffed, "like the nappies."

The Doctor's eyebrows shot up in surprise before he laughed. "Rose Tyler! She was the uncrowned queen of France – "

"Blah, blah, blah." Rose let go of his hand, stepping back to sit down on the bed. Stricken at the loss of contact, the Doctor turned around to face her, one hand still holding the picture. If he couldn't touch her, he at least needed to see Rose.

"I read up on her," Rose said, nodding toward the bookcase. "She was remarkable. Exceptionally capable with a great mind and devoted to the King. Not really the glimpse I got of her during the whole fireplace fiasco. So you'll have to excuse me if I separate her into Madame de Pampers who I met and Madame de Pompadour great historical figure of France who exists only in biographies for me."

The Doctor frowned, looking down at the picture before setting it back on the dresser. He crossed to the bed and sat down beside Rose, his hand searching out hers. His fingers bumped up against the back of her hand and Rose flipped her palm over to readily join them together.

"Was Reinette really that rude to you? I thought you only saw her for a second?"

Rose shrugged. "She said you were worth the monsters." Rose titled her head to the side, looking quietly at the Doctor. "Which means she didn't really get it. I wasn't with you because I wanted to be in spite of the monsters, I was with you because I wanted to be with you when you found the monsters."

The Doctor was completely helpless against the smile her words brought. "You always were fantastic, Rose."

She returned his smile, the first true one he had seen since she came blazing aboard his ship. "And so were you."

Seconds elapsed into minutes as they sat staring and smiling at each other. It was familiar, even though his face was different and her hair was longer. His eyes ran rapidly over her features looking for any changes that might have occurred in –

"Rose? How long has it been?"

"How long?" She looked up at the ceiling. "Well, three years for us. How long has it been for you?"

He let out a shaky laugh. "Three years." It was incredible that it should be so short a time for her and yet the thought of Rose Tyler living three whole years without him seeing her, without him watching her grow and change, seemed so much longer than the two hundred years he'd lived since she left.

"It's been three years for you?" Rose asked, her brow furrowing.

"No – no. Not three years, closer to two hundred, actually." The Doctor looked at Rose nervously, his left hand tugging at the side of his bow tie.

Rose lifted her unoccupied hand, settling it over the Doctor's so that he would stop fidgeting with his accessory of choice. "You're going to choke yourself if you don't stop that."

"I – what?" he dropped his hand to his lap. "That's all you have to say? Two hundred years and you're worried about me choking myself?"

"Well, it'd be a shame for you to regenerate after two hundred years due to suffocation from bow tie," Rose reasoned.

Then her tongue poked through her teeth and time stopped moving and the universe stopped spinning because just for a second, everything was perfect.

The Doctor could feel the words coming, could feel them pushing up against his lips, racing through his thoughts. Two hundred years and he was finally ready to say it.

"Rose Tyler, I –"

Her hand clamped over his mouth, the soft skin of her palm pressing tight to his lips, still open to form the next word, to finally, finally finish that sentence. "Don't." It was a plea, not a demand and it hurt more than he had ever imagined it would.

"Not now," she continued, her beautiful brown eyes locked on him. "I need to find the Doctor, my husband. I need you to be my friend, to help me. I need you not to finish that sentence, because right now, it doesn't need saying."

The Doctor nodded, his lips brushing over the skin of her palm, to show he understood. Rose withdrew her hand, eying him with a shy smile. "And, anyway, you seem to have a bit of a wife at the moment."

Before the Doctor could think of a proper response to that, and one that would probably include an apology for the kissing show in the console room, Rose leaned in close, her lips hovering next to his ear and whispered a word that was everything he had ever wanted to hear from her, in her voice, with her warmth.

"Rose!" He jerked back in surprise.

She laughed. "It's a ridiculous name, by the way. Totally made me laugh during the vows, which I can tell you, you did not appreciate in the least."

"My name! You know my name." He seemed to be having trouble comprehending this, the hand not holding hers flailing awkwardly at his side, he looked a bit like a deranged penguin actually, which only made Rose laugh harder.

Rose managed to compose herself after a moment, which was difficult with him looking all indignant. An indignant deranged penguin. "Of course I do, married you, didn't I? Well, not you-you. I got the one with better hair."

His hand went to his hair, yanking on it a bit. "My hair is better! Not all sticking up for no reason!"

Her tongue poked out before she fell back on the bed, finally releasing his hand, and laughing until she cried. The Doctor didn't like her laughing. She was laughing at him, it was a bit more than insulting. Here she was, saying his name like it didn't matter in the least, and then poking fun at this new him.

"Rose Tyler," he said sternly, arms braced on either side of her as he loomed over imposingly. "You cannot laugh at the Last of the Time Lords. It is strictly forbidden."

"Not – the – last," she managed between fits of laughter. "Half of the last." Then she broke up into more gales of helpless laughter.

The Doctor glared, dropping lower so that she could see his menacing look. "I am the Oncoming Storm, I am the Time Lord Victorious," he dropped lower with every pronouncement. "I am –" his nose brushed hers.

"Not Spock," Rose interrupted, her breath coming in gasps from all the laughing.

"You should be punished for such remarks, you stupid ape," the Doctor teased, his eyes running hungrily over her features, flushed and bright.

"I don't think so, Shake." Rose grinned, her tongue slipping through.

"That's why you're Shiver," he replied, his head dipping down, covering those last few inches that separated them. He could feel her breath, warm, against his lips, her chest, rising upwards. She was so very alive, and she was so very here, and she was so very close, and she was so very very –

"Rose Tyler."

The amusement faded from her eyes and she regarded him seriously. They were in the midst of being in a situation. It was incredibly easy to be with the Doctor, to slip back into their old familiarity because even if it was two hundred years and he had a new face, he was the Doctor and she was Rose Tyler, just as it should be. But it wasn't, because he wasn't.

Rose watched as his eyes fell shut and he moved to eliminate the very last, very important space between them. Quickly, she slipped from beneath him, off the bed, and stood looking back at him, her heart racing, and her hands trembling.

"We can't," she said, in a voice she was proud didn't shake. "You've got a wife, I've got a husband, one I desperately want to find, one I need you desperately to help me find."

The Doctor was staring at the space Rose had occupied only moments before, blinking in disbelief at how incredibly empty that space was without her. He heard picture frames scraping against the dresser as she rearranged the photographs he had moved.

"We're not really married." He didn't know why he said it; he had a feeling that compassionate as Rose was, she would not like him dispelling his marriage so easily.

Rose held up the picture of the Doctor lifting her up in his arms, full in her wedding dress, her bouquet held loosely in her right hand. They were smiling, beaming actually, at the photographer, shouting out random planet names to see who could make the photographer the most aggravated. It had been one of the best days of her life. Why hadn't it been his, this Doctor's?

"What do you mean?" She turned around, leaning back against the dresser, the knobs digging into her back but not in a way that really bothered her.

"Me and River, River and I." He sat up, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands as he worked his fingers through is hair in a repeated gesture of frustration. "We were married, more or less, in a timeline that didn't exist."

"A timeline that what?" What he'd said didn't make any sense. How could a timeline not exist?

"Like the one with your father, where I was taken by the Reapers. That timeline didn't exist."

"But – but it did, because, I was there, when he died. I held him, Mum remembers," Rose argued, feeling anxious at the mention of the worst thing and the best thing she had done while with the Doctor.

"Yes, you holding him existed, but the part where the universe was being destroyed, that you and I remember and no one else does, that doesn't exist. That's what happened with River. We were in a universe that was tearing itself apart and while we remember what happened, no one else does, because it never existed."

Rose frowned. Hands propped on the dresser, she shifted to ease off the knobs, mulling this over. "Then why would you marry her there? If you knew it wasn't going to exist?"

The Doctor sighed heavily, his hands stilling in his hair. His fingers knotted at the back of his neck. He couldn't look at Rose when he said this, he had become such a different person while she was gone, and maybe he'd been doing a good job of hiding it before, but now . . . now it would begin to unravel.

"Because she needed me to."

"What?"

"River, she needed me to marry her. It was the only way for me to save the universe, and I do care for River, she has been incredibly loyal and I have done absolutely nothing to deserve that."

"Doctor," Rose said angrily. "That's not why you marry someone, because you need to. Because you wanted to earn her trust – why was the universe ending anyway?"

"River tried to save my life and to do that she endangered the universe –"

"What the bloody hell goes on when I'm not around here?" Rose asked, rubbing aggressively at her temples. "You start wearing bow ties –"

The Doctor jerked his head up. "Bow ties are cool!"

Rose snorted. "I changed my jumper," she mocked in an awful attempt at his former Northern accent.

"What does that have to do with anything? I _did_ change my jumper!"

"Did I do that?" Rose asked, her tone abruptly worried.

"Change your jumper?" He looked at her incredulously. "You never wore a jumper, Rose."

"No, you idiot." She rolled her eyes at him. "When – when I tried to save you on Satellite Five, did I endanger the universe?" Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip, gnawing at it in a horrible habit she'd picked up since the first time he'd left her on Bad Wolf Bay.

She hadn't even recovered the memories of Bad Wolf until after their TARDIS started to mature. Then it had come back to her in blinding yellow dreams that woke her up screaming and needing the Doctor to soothe her back to sleep. Eventually he had explained what had happened, in the barest of the details, tears shimmering in his eyes.

They had called in sick to Torchwood that day, spent it instead doing everything domestic they could think of. Making microwave s'mores, watching black and white movies, playing scrabble (the Doctor had cheated with alien words that he knew she wouldn't be able to prove weren't real).

But what if he had left something out, to protect her? What if she had almost destroyed everything, not just the course of Jack's life? And that was something she was never going to be able to apologize for. She had been furious at first, with herself for condemning Jack to eternal life, and then with the Doctor for not telling her sooner so that they could have found him, helped him, let her apologize.

"No," the Doctor said quietly, drawing Rose away from her dark thoughts which had her eyes glowing gold again. It worried him, that gold. "No, Rose, you didn't endanger the universe. You could have, might have, but I took the Vortex out of you before that. Or at least, I thought I did."

She nodded disjointedly, her teeth still digging into her lip. She might have. Would she now? Her Doctor was missing and wouldn't she do anything to get him back? Wouldn't she sacrifice anything?

Rose closed her eyes. She was back on Bad Wolf Bay.

_"I'm burning up a sun just to say good-bye." _

_"Can't you come through properly?"_

_"The whole thing would fracture. The two universe would collapse."_

_"So?"_

They'd laughed. Of course they had. She'd meant it just as much as she hadn't. She wanted to be with him more than anything, but there were prices you had to pay in the life they lived and the one thing that they had to live by was saving the universe. So of course she hadn't meant it, because the universe came first and then them. She had learned that lesson very effectively with trying to save her father. Nothing was worth that. Not even him, the Doctor.

"I wouldn't have," she said quietly, more to herself than to him. "I wouldn't have done that, because you wouldn't have wanted me to and I wouldn't have wanted to. 'Everything has its time and everything dies,'" she quoted softly. It was what her first Doctor had told her, something she remembered any time things got almost too difficult to bear.

Watching her expression grow sadder, the Doctor opened his arms for her. Rose walked towards him and he folded her into his embrace, his face coming to rest against her chest. "No, Rose, you're right, you wouldn't have. Not after –"

"Not after the Reapers, no." Her hands ran up the tweed of his jacket, the material rough against her fingertips, leaving them tingling. "Where are you?" she whispered, her cheek resting on the crown of his head.

"I don't know, Rose."

They lapsed into silence, drawing solace from their embrace.

"But you did marry her," Rose said finally. "Because she knows your name, and you –"

"I didn't though," he interceded. "Not then. It wasn't – it wasn't even really me."

She drew her fingers through his hair, loving the way it ruffled against her skin. "What could you possibly mean by that? Another half self out there, Doctor?"

"Not in those exact terms. It was robot me and I was inside the robot and so quite technically the robot married River, but it wasn't a proper ceremony and I didn't tell her my name, and it happened in a timeline that never existed –"

"Was it real to River?"

The Doctor stumbled then fell silent. "Yes," he said finally, "yes, it was very real to River."

"Then you married her. And she is your wife. And you are her husband." Rose drew back, out of his arms, further still until she was completely out of his reach.

He had nothing to say to that. It was something he had been struggling with since it had happened. All of time in crisis because River wanted to save him, even though he'd already found a way to save himself.

"How am I going to find you?" Rose asked.

"I don't know, Rose," he said quietly, leaning forward on the bed until he could link their hands together, choosing to ignore that she might not want him to touch her after his confession. "Wandering around Savoh blindly looking for me isn't really an option."

"Can you do something Spock?" she pleaded. "Scan for non-Savoh?"

"It's not really the simple," he apologized. "When the others get here, we could try and form search parties, but even then, we'll probably have to wait until tomorrow, the jungle will be too dark at night."

Rose fought off tears. Waiting until tomorrow didn't appeal to her at all, but if the Doctor thought that's what they should do, there really wasn't a way for her to argue against him. She'd never heard of Savoh before let alone landed on it and as the alien expert, she was going to have to listen to the Doctor, even if it was the last thing she wanted to do.

They had fallen back into silence when a knock echoed through the TARDIS. Rose's eyes flared golden and she took off at a dead run. The Doctor hurried after her, arms pumping at his sides as he chased her through the winding hallways to the console room. He had been dreading this moment, the moment when his other self returned to whisk Rose away from him. It was the absolute last thing he wanted to happen just as it was the absolute only thing Rose wanted.

Rose threw herself across the console room, wrenching the door open, heart in her throat.


	5. Chapter 5

**A.N.** Thanks so much for all the amazing reviews! I'm so glad to hear people like the story =] And thanks for the follows and the favorites, they are awesome too!

* * *

"Hello," Rory said, one hand lifted in a wave.

Rose's shoulders slumped forward and she fell back step. "Hello," she said, the words falling flatl as she motioned for him to enter.

"Thanks." He bobbed his head and entered the TARDIS that was the same police box on the outside but entirely different on the inside. "Wow. Been doing some redecorating?"

"No," Rose said dejectedly, "this was the original look, retro if you prefer."

"Ah." Rory looked around him with interest. "Very – uh – graty?"

A smile flickered on Rose's lips. "Yeah, but I bet it's easier to clean than all that glass."

"Fair point." Rory stopped before her. "So, we haven't exactly been properly introduced. I'm Rory Williams, husband of Amy Williams who met the Doctor when she was eleven and I believed he was her imaginary friend for twelve years before he showed back up again. He jumped out of my bachelor's cake and told me my wife was a good kisser. He is also now my son-in-law since he married my daughter River, but River's an entirely different story. And you?"

Rose blinked, then smiled. She'd known Rory was going to be fantastic. There was just something about him, the way he was completely calm even when everything else was chaos.

"Right then. Awful rude of me before, but I'm Rose Tyler. I traveled with this Doctor," she jerked her thumb back to the man in question, he was skulking at the back of the console, fiddling once more, "for two years during which time he missed taking me home by a year and everyone, including my mum, thought I'd been murdered. Then he regenerated on me without ever telling me he could do that to begin with, then I got separated in a parallel universe, fought my way back, helped defeat the Daleks again, and got sent off with Ten and a Half, who I married, who is currently lost which is why I'm here."

Rory nodded, he held out one hand, "Pleasure to meet you, Rose Tyler."

Rose accepted his hand. "Same to you, Rory Williams." They shook warmly.

Introductions completed, Rory's hand fell back to his side, the other slipping into his jeans' pocket. "So, do we have a plan for finding this husband of yours? Because my wife was rather looking forward to finally making it to Rio. At least this time her outfit isn't entirely inappropriate for the temperature."

"Ah," Rose commiserated. "I once ended up in 1879 dressed for summer 1979."

"Isn't it the worst?" asked a Scottish voice. Amy's vibrant head poked around the edge of the door. "And he doesn't even let you go back to the TARDIS to change."

Rose laughed. "Well, it's not like he ever changes anyway. Okay, that's not entirely true. He changed a couple times –"

"What?" Amy asked in shock, walking fully into the TARDIs but leaving the door ajar behind her. "He's never changed with us."

"Time Lord," the Doctor wheedled, slowly coming around the console to join the trio. "I'm above wardrobe changes."

Amy and Rose looked at each other before cracking up. "Yes, of course, because bow ties, height of fashion," Amy said.

"Don't forget the fezz," added River, the final memeber of the group, easing the TARDIS door shut behind her.

"Fezzes are cool," the Doctor huffed, carefully watching River to gauge just how angry she was with him. Her eyes were cool, but she didn't look particularly inclined to slap him.

"No," Rose said firmly. "Fezzes are not cool."

"And then there was the Stetson," Rory commented.

"Good lord," Rose turned to the Doctor, her nose wrinkled. "What is it with the headwear? You never had headwear when I knew you. The jacket, leather and brown editions, and glasses for Ten, but hats?"

"Hats are cool," the Doctor argued.

"On your head?" Rose asked unconvinced.

Amy laughed. "I like her, Doctor."

Rose looked to the girl, well, girl wasn't exactly the right wording, she could only be a few years younger than Rose herself. But, Rory had said River was their –

"Wait. What?" Rose asked, looking at the family in question.

"Ah." The Doctor held up his finger. "Right." He stepped smoothly between the group. "These are the Ponds. Amelia Pond, Rory Williams-Pond, and Melody Pond who became River Song." He gestured to each in turn.

"That's wonderful, Doctor, but I got the names, it's the actuality I don't understand."

"This really is the kind of conversation that requires tea," River said, hooking her arm through Rose's and heading toward the hallway.

"And Jammie Dodgers," the Doctor said excitedly, linking his arm through Rose's other.

Rose looked between the couple bookending her in. She saw the nervous pull of the Doctor's mouth and the stony set of River's features. "Right . . . think this requires a bit more than that. Like chips."

"Fish fingers and custard!" the Doctor said at the same time.

Rose made a face, guiding them down the right hallways to the kitchen. "That's disgusting."

"Don't I know it," Amy muttered, coming up behind just as they entered the kitchen.

Rose shook off her companions and set about putting the kettle on and sorting through the cupboards for the biscuits and tea things.

As the others took a seat, River joined her at the cupboards. "Which one has tea cups?"

"The left, I think. Haven't had a chance to sort through everything yet, actually." Rose stretched onto her tiptoes to pull down the sugar, but an arm reached over and took it for her.

She glanced over her shoulder at the Doctor. He fiddled with the lid, looking down at her with unreadable hazel eyes. "You can put it on the table, Doctor," she told him when he didn't move.

Blushing, the Doctor walked quickly away leaving the two women alone in the kitchen half of the room. "Bit useless if you don't give him a shove," River said, taking down five cups.

"Mm," Rose agreed, thinking of jelly jars that didn't belong to them. She cast a wary glance toward the table. "But he's over that licking everything phase, right?"

The tea cups clattered onto the counter top. "Licking what?"

Rose grinned. "I'll take that as a yes then. That's a relief. I always thought it was a bit dodgy, licking things you didn't know what they were."

"And I thought I had it bad with the air kiss nonsense." River shook her head.

Rose took a moment to envision the Doctor, this Doctor who was not nearly as suave as either of his past selves, air kissing anyone. She giggled. "Lucky he has you then."

"Us," River clarified with a wink.

"Us," Rose agreed with a smile, picking up the tea things and carrying them over to the table, River right behind her.

When the kettle boiled Rory jogged over to get it. Once everyone was settled, tea properly made, snacks distributed, Rose turned curious eyes to River. "How exactly did you become River Song?"

* * *

The story of River Song saddened Rose, it also worried her, it worried her a lot. It called to mind what the Doctor had said to her earlier, 'I am Time Lord Victorious.' That was the root of her worry.

Rose was acutely aware of the eyes on her, the eyes belonging to companions she had never and would never get the chance to know and travel with. Eyes that were hazel not blue or brown, that she knew were apprehensive without having to look at them. Eyes belonging to the woman of the tale herself, the one who should have had so much in common with Rose but whose life had taken such a different path.

This worried her as well. How does one react to news that one isn't in the least prepared for? Rose, admittedly, was well versed in this, but now, in this moment, she was coming up blank. Feeling like the Doctor when he'd been caught at something that was going lead to a proclamation of 'Run!'

She was working on keeping her attention fixed to her tea; her hands cupped the mug and she gave it a little twist to send ripples across the amber surface. What to say? Time was quickly deserting her and she still had nothing to say.

"Rose?" It was the Doctor's voice, gentle and prodding, which of course meant he was horrendously nervous.

Settling on ambivalently surprised, Rose looked up suddenly from her tea, a half smile affixed to the right side of her mouth. "How positively –" she faltered. Positively insane, positively bizarre, positively awful, positively – "life changing."

River's rather lovely mouth formed a small circle, a smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. "Exactly that, Sweetie."

And Rose knew from those words that Rive understood at least some of the thoughts Rose was working so hard to contain. "Can I show you the library, River?"

The other woman nodded, pushing back from the table and looking at the Doctor. "Clean this up, will you, Sweetie? Rose and I have some things to discuss."

His jaw flapped once, then twice, as if trying to figure out how he'd been delegated to domestic duties, but River had already dismissed him as she offered her arm to Rose who slipped around the table and linked hers through.

"Rory and Amy, you're perfectly welcome to explore the TARDIS. I know it must be different than yours," Rose offered politely.

Amy looked ready to say something, but Rory clamped his hand down over hers before she got the chance. "We'd love to."

As the two women the Doctor cared most about disappeared through the doorway of the kitchen, the Doctor shot a look around at the empty dishes and cups. He frowned. "Amy, you like washing up, don't you?"

A staccato laugh answered that question rightly enough. "Oh no, Doctor, you're not getting out of this one." She turned her head to the side, narrowing her eyes at him. "I heard my daughter tell you the washing up was _your_ department."

"It's really best not to go against the wishes of a Pond's woman," Rory advised, drawing his wife down into his lap.

"And you two, you're just going to sit there watching me?" the Doctor groused, reluctantly gathering up the plates, crumbs falling as he did so, speckling the table top.

"A chance to see you behaving domestically, uhm, yes." Amy beamed at him, wrapping Rory's arms securely around her middle. "It'll also give you a great chance to explain what's going on here, because I'm sure you haven't forgotten this place is not Rio. Not even close."

"Close is a relative term," the Doctor said. He dumped the dishes with a rattling clatter into the sink and doused them with water. "We're closer to Rio now than we were in the TARDIS when Rose arrived. We are also close, as you put it, to Rio in the sense that the temperatures are relatively similar and the marvelous foliage that grows here does have some aspects in common with that of the type that thrived in Rio before humans –"

"Raggedy Man!" Amy interrupted loudly. "There is no talking your way out of this one. This is not Rio. End of discussion. Now, wash."

With a grimace, the Doctor poured soup onto a blue sponge the TARDIS had kindly supplied. "Couldn't have just installed a dishwasher?" the Doctor asked the TARDIS, his gaze pointed at the grating ceiling.

"Come on, Amy," Rory said, helping her to her feet as he stood. "Let's leave the Doctor what little dignity he has left with his shirt sleeves rolled up and up to his elbows in soap bubbles."

The Doctor was grateful to have his humiliation in peace, not that much embarrassed him. But really! What had River been thinking telling him to do the washing? She knew he hated domestics.

"Kill joy," Amy pouted, but she followed his lead toward the door. "Think this place has any rooms without bunk beds?"

There was a distinct splash as the Doctor dropped a tea cup into the watery depths of the sink. "Ah – Amy, I'm sure you'll find that as this TARDIS is very young, it doesn't have that many rooms and –" he was rambling, there was no point to what he was saying, only he felt a need to keep Amy and Rory away from Rose's – their bedroom. His and hers. Half his.

The pictures, everywhere, all in perfectly maintained frames, with perfectly happy occupants. Amy wouldn't even know it was him, well she might, but it wouldn't look like him. Still he didn't want her to see that. He wanted to . . . well, he wanted to keep it for himself right now.

Rory seemed to understand what the Doctor was floundering to say. "I wouldn't worry, Doctor. Even if there are rooms with queen sized beds, I'm sure the TARDIS will only let us into rooms she wants us to see, and if she doesn't want two new guests, she'll be sure to keep the doors to those rooms locked."

"But if I see one queen sized bed anywhere on this ship, I am demanding one from our TARDIS when we get back," Amy threatened, weaving her fingers through her husband and leading the way out of the kitchen. "Keep up with the washing, Raggedy Man, you're not even halfway finished."

Sinking his arms deep into the foamy depths of the sink, the Doctor retrieved the tea cup he had dropped. He grimaced. "Domestic." From his lips, the word sounded as if it was akin to the plague.

Turning the tea cup in his hands, he saw the delicate rose pattern covering the china. Well, maybe this kind of the domestic wasn't the worst you could have. Rose's tea cup with roses on it. That was rather splendid, that was. And, Rose would be impressed with him if he did the washing. Yes, she would see how mature he was, doing the washing without throwing a fit like his former self would have, as he was sure his half self did.

A small smile lifted the corner of his mouth. At least there was no carpet to be seen on this TARDIS, his half-self had persevered at least some standards. The Doctor picked up the sponge and smeared Rose's tea cup with soap.


	6. Chapter 6

**A.N.** Apologies for the delay in updates. Classes here got . . . China crazy. So! I'm desperately sorry for not getting back to comments and promise to do a much better job about that & hopefully to get out weekly updates now that my semester is finished. Thank you so much for following, reviewing, or choosing to favorite =] That is just completely awesome!

* * *

Arm-in-arm, Rose and River wound their way through the hallways of the TARDIS finally coming to a stop midway down their third hallway before a set of double doors. Rose pushed one open and stepped into the beauty that was the TARDIS library. It was quite a bit smaller than the one on the original TARDIS but that was because it had far fewer tastes to accommodate. It didn't have the preferred reading of eleven regenerations and numerous companions; it only held that of the Doctor and Rose Tyler.

Rose and River settled themselves in oversized and overstuffed arm chairs, one pink and one blue, before a charming fireplace. Although, Rose had found fireplaces quite lacking on charm until the TARDIS had conjured this one up.

"You wanted to talk?" River asked, her quiet understanding smile lurking at the corners of her mouth.

Rose nodded, taking a moment to gather her thoughts.

It was so easy to understand what the Doctor saw in River. She was a brilliant woman and she was apt at dealing with things with an unassuming grace of being completely ready for anything you threw at her. Rose thought there were probably very few things that surprised River, and apparently, Rose was one of them. That didn't exactly bode well.

"You've known him, longer than me, probably better than me too . . ." Rose trailed off, not sure how to phrase what was worrying here. How did you ask someone if her husband seemed to be a little less wary of his Time Lord-ness than he used to?

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," River said, filling in the lull.

Rose glanced at her in surprise. "How'd you mean?"

River's lurking smile faded.

Its disappearance left her expression somber, like a woman waiting to be told her husband wouldn't be returning from war - we're so sorry ma'am, his sacrifice was greatly appreciated. Rose's worry amplified. What could make a woman as strong as River had shown herself to be, as River had been explained to be through the story of her life, look that sad? That bereft? That vulnerable?

"I have had to make many sacrifices in my life to be with the Doctor. He knows, or will know, absolutely everything there is to know about me. And until you barged through the TARDIS doors this morning, I thought I could say with equal conviction that I knew everything there is to know about him. But of course, I was wrong." Her brittle smile as she said this only strengthened Rose's conviction that something was seriously amiss.

"How could I forget," continued River, "that the Doctor lies? That he doesn't like when things end?"

Rose felt herself squinting as if it would only require her looking in the right way, from the right angle to make sense of what River was saying. It didn't seem the right thing to do, squint at someone like they were a soufflé turned out wrong. But, the Doctor lying? The Doctor not liking things to end? What did that mean?

"No one likes endings," Rose offered feebly, her head now titled to the side as if changing her angle might suddenly put things back in 20/20.

River's laugh was the least joyous thing Rose had ever heard. "He never mentioned you. Did you know that? Not once in all the time I've known him did he ever say one word about a Rose Tyler. You came out of the literal blue, all hell fire and golden eyes, and all it took was once glance at him staring at you as if you were another Time Lord he had just discovered for me to realize –"

"No!" Rose interrupted, her hands waving frantically before her, the squint abandoned in preference of trying to physically stop River from forming words that weren't true. "River – it's not like that –"

"Of course it is." There was nothing questioning in River's tone. She sat perfectly composed, her spine straight against the comfy arm chair, the bright light Rose had grown accustomed to seeing in her eyes, gone, replaced with something close to finality, martyrdom.

"Don't be ridiculous," Rose snapped. River hitched an eyebrow of surprise. "Come off it, you're talking like – like it's all been this big façade. Marrying you, loving you, until I show up and bang! The whole charade's off."

River lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. "The Doctor lies."

"What does that even mean?" Rose pressed, leaning forward in her seat, legs crossed Indian style in her lap. "You keep saying that but I don't know what you mean. Lies? Everybody lies, but the way you say it, s'like it's something more than it is. And the Doctor doesn't lie like that."

Her thoughts slid to the only two occasions she had known the Doctor to truly blatantly lie. When he'd told her to get into the TARDIS that everything would be brilliantly fine when in actual reality he was sealing her in for safety, sending her back to her present to protect her from certain death on Satellite Five. And once she'd realized that, she'd fought tooth, claw, and heavy duty machinery to get back to him, to rectify him on that grievous error of thinking he needed to save her when all she ever wanted to do was try and help him.

Then there was Donna. Wonderful Donna Noble whose life, her all important life, had to be sealed away to save her. Hidden memories that if remembered would burn her up. To save her, the Doctor had lied to her, had done so without asking, just as he had done to Rose. But unlike Rose, Donna didn't have the chance to fight her way back. It was something Rose and the Doctor had long night talks about, her doubts, his guilt, her comforting him over a past he couldn't change.

"Not – not if he doesn't have what he thinks is a very important reason," Rose amended. "Doesn't mean it's a particularly good reason or actually the right thing to do, but that's why we're here, to call him out on absolute bollocks."

But the way that River was watching her now, with eyes wide, and lips trembling, Rose didn't think these were the same lies. And what did that mean? Why did the Doctor lie now?

River said, "Of course he does, to save us; that's all he ever does, try to save the world."

Rose shook her head as if that could clear the confusion swamping her from every side. Instead, all it did was add a little golden shimmer when she closed her eyes. Bad Wolf, ever present, was lying in wait.

"But he's worth it," River pressed on, her tone earnest, "the lies, the sulking when things must end."

Pressing frustrated fingers to her temples, Rose felt Bad Wolf uncurling from the place so close to her soul. She felt the wolf stretch, felt her attention shift to what was presently upsetting her guardian.

"Everything has it's time, everything dies." The voice that wasn't entirely Rose sent chills running down River's arms.

River shifted in her chair, one hand going to her blaster attached to her belt. Even the Doctor didn't know what made Rose golden, and right now River was closer to the Bad Wolf than she had really wanted to be.

Then just as suddenly it was gone. Rose's eyes were brown and she was sucking in a deep breath as if someone had held her underwater. "That's what he told me," Rose said when she regained the ability to speak. "When I first met him, the Doctor, that's what he told me."

River's fingers brushed over the blaster's hilt, then up to the arm of the chair. "Not him, though. He's eternal and forever, isn't he?"

"No," Rose sighed in annoyance. "River, stop. You don't need to defend him to me or – or whatever it is that you're doing. The Doctor isn't forever, he just lives a lot longer than the rest of us. And even if he was forever, that doesn't give him the right – I mean, that's why he needs us, River! He needs someone to tell him when he's going too far to remind him that having abilities the rest of us don't, doesn't make him God, that protecting doesn't mean deciding for others."

"He didn't decide for you?" River countered.

Rose waved this away, her face pinched with displeasure. "He tried, and maybe sometimes he did, but-River are you happy with the way things are? With having your whole life – "

She broke off. This really wasn't her territory to step into. Yes, River had been kind enough to share her life story with Rose, but that didn't give Rose the right to comment on it, to tell her that it was crazy, this insanity of chasing after a man whose very existence had changed the course of her life irrevocably.

"He's worth it, Rose. I wouldn't change anything that happened to me because it brought him to me."

"River!" Rose threw her hands up then slapped them back against her thighs. "Okay. This isn't my place, and I know that – but – I am so sick of people telling me what the Doctor is worth. That's not how this works, River. The Doctor isn't worth the heartbreak, he isn't worth the monster, he isn't worth the lies, and he certainly isn't worth not liking endings. He isn't worth anything you weren't prepared to give up even before he came into your life."

"And what did you give up?" River asked.

"I gave up the life I knew, everything about it, I gave up my family, but I was ready to do that even before he stepped into my life. I would have done those things eventually, only they happened sooner because I wanted to be with him, to travel with him. I made those choices, River . . . don't you –" Roes cut herself off again.

This wasn't any good. And River wasn't who she should be talking about this with. It was the Doctor she need to talk to, the Doctor she need to demand answers from. River's life had already happened, nothing Rose said was going to unwind the time that had occurred.

"Just – just don't forget, River, you are brilliant, you've led a brilliant life, you can handle things on your own, you don't need the Doctor, you can live a brilliant life and choose for yourself if he's in it or not."

The look River was giving her was something akin to puzzlement and patronizing. Maybe River was thinking that Rose had lived with a very different Doctor, and that was starting to become abundantly clear to Rose, which was the entire reason she had asked River to the library in the first place, so better to get on with that then continue to make a nuisance of herself to River whom she liked rather a lot.

"I'm sorry," Rose said, one hand running through her long blonde hair. "This isn't – this isn't what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about the Pandorica, about Lake Silencio. Time Lord Victorious."

The fire crackled, sparking up then down a bit. The books dulled and muffled the atmosphere, her words came soft off the spines of classics and books not yet written. River waited for Rose to continue.

"What happened, River? From the crash of the _Byzantium_ to LakeSilencio, what happened?"

"I don't know what you mean, Sweetie," River said quietly.

Rose's sunk back on the arm chair. She was tired. Exceedingly tired, because obviously River really didn't know. She didn't see the difference that Rose did, the difference between the Doctor she knew and loved and the one who called himself Time Lord Victorious, the one who worried her greatly.

So instead she opted for something else that worried her. "Do you think he's here?"

"I don't know that either. If this is where the TARDIS is, then he can't be far, I'm sure."

The door to the library creaked open, even though the library was newly established and the door was metal on the outside, one of the magical qualities of the TARDIS. The door creaked because Rose and the Doctor wanted it to creak and the TARDIS agreed that it should.

There was a nervous cough followed by what Rose could swear was fiddling with a bow tie. "Mind if I join you?"

River patted the arm of her chair as invitation and Rose was ashamed by her relief when the Doctor chose to pace in front of the fireplace instead.

"Sweetie, do settle down, it's not as if we were comparing," River paused for effect, "styles."

There was a wild moment where Rose was sure she was the one who was going to regenerate from the heat burning in her cheeks. In the next moment, she was laughing. At River's comment, the Doctor had tripped over his boots mid-spin and almost toppled into the fireplace.

"River! I – Why – What – I – Styles!"

This only made Rose laugh harder, especially as the Doctor frantically pulled at his bow tie to the point where he cut off his own air supply therefore stifling off his own stuttered attempt at a sentence.

Standing gracefully, River smoothed her hands down her jeans. "Now, I'm going to find my mom and dad before they discover a bedroom without bunk beds and refuse to ever come out again." She wiggled her fingers. "See you two later."

Rose managed a gasping 'bye' in between laughs, accompanied by a wave. For his part, the Doctor refused to acknowledge his wife, even as he watched her sashaying exit. That was River, the only person he knew who could reduce him to ridiculous with one word. She always had the first word and usually the last; while it drove him crazy, it was part of what drew him to her as well.

His gaze stayed stuck on her, not quite ready to face Rose yet. The two women had been locked in the library for quite some time, more time than it took him to do dishes and he'd begun to worry. Not about anything distinct which only worried him more. Nervously, he fidgeted with his bow tie, more gently this time since he didn't want to choke himself again. He felt Rose's gaze burning into his back.

Well. He wasn't going to talk first. He was a Time Lord, after all. He had pride, he had dignity, he - wasn't entirely sure he could talk until the ache in his throat from nearly strangling himself subsided.


	7. Chapter 7

**A.N.** This chapter is a little bit shorter than normal but that's because the entire section was a little bit too glaringly huge for one chapter so I broke it up into two. Second half coming next week!

* * *

When Rose was finally capable of wiping the tears from her eyes and had settled down her laughter, she found the Doctor staring moodily into the fire. The taut line of his shoulders, and the jutting of his jaw told Rose that she needed to soothe his badly ruffled ego.

Unfolding herself from the comfy armchair, Rose crept up behind him. Had it just been the two of them, like it once was, Rose would have wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his back. But things weren't like that anymore and she really didn't think River would appreciate it.

So instead, Rose went with their time honored tradition. She slipped her hand in with his and squeezed. "I like your wife," she said teasingly.

The Doctor huffed in reply, his shoulders jerking forward then back.

"And the pair of you managed to cleanly avoid all that domestic nonsense." She swung their hands back and forth.

He leaned into her side. "I did the washing up, you know, put the mugs back where I thought they should go, not that ridiculous cabinet you choose that's too tall for you by far."

Rose's eyes twinkled, but she held back her laugh. "How very mature of you."

"Knew you'd think so."

"Did River aid in the development of said maturity?"

There was another huff. "Mrs. Robinson."

Rose lifted an eyebrow but decided that it was probably in her best interest if she didn't ask. Besides, after stepping all over River's personal life, she felt it was high time to tread on someone else's.

"I'm worried about you," she said quietly, her eyes on the fire, the way it danced as it destroyed.

"Me?" The Doctor jerked back a step to look down at her, the fire serving as a backlight, framing his features in shadows. As the fire burned, the shadows leapt across the contours of the Doctor's face, highlighting him in a far more sinister nature than Rose had ever envisioned him looking.

"Yes, you."

"But – but – why? Rose, I don't quite – Is this about Bad Wolf?" He stuttered his way through conclusions, discarding each as highly improbably. What could Rose possibly have to be worried over him for? She was the one with an unidentified energy source burning through her –

"It's about the story of River Song," Rose started, her hand squeezing his once before falling away to her side.

"River?" The Doctor's barely-there eyebrows shot upwards before an alarmingly look of smug understanding lit his eyes.

Rose did not like that look. Rose did not trust that look. Rose was completely right about what that look meant.

"Now, Rose. You've been living in Pete's World with Handsy and it's been two hundred years on my end so of course -"

Before this smugness could find any new ways to make Rose want to pull out her hair, she slapped her hand over the Doctor's mouth. His words continued to come, muffled by the barrier and sounding a lot like smug mumbles, but Rose was having none of it.

"River is an absolutely lovely woman who is both brilliant and incredible. I am not jealous of her – well, any more than would be natural. But!" She pressed her hand harder against his lips, her face bearing up on his, the Doctor's eyes almost comically wide now that some of the smugness had been removed.

"But that is not at all what I am talking about. I am talking about the story of River Song. Of how it is at all possible that you didn't tell Amy she was: a, quite probably not the real Amy, and b, quite probably pregnant! Doctor, what were you thinking?"

Rose waited a moment before removing her hand, warning with her eyes that this was a serious question and not the time for Timey-Wimey-ness. Oh, yes, she'd heard of that phrase from Ten and a Half and while she definitely delighted in it, now was not the time.

"Rose," the Doctor said slowly, his hands coming up to run over each other and gesture outwardly from his body. "She would have been scared, confused."

A hiked eyebrow was her only reply.

"I needed to protect her, Rose, I needed to find a way to save her before I told her what was going on."

This earned a narrowed gaze bordering on a glare and the Doctor felt this didn't particularly bode well. They had been doing so well! With him impressing her with the dish washing and now they were talk about . . . about things he didn't like talking about.

"You don't seriously think, Doctor, that Amy would have been worse off knowing the truth? That it mightn't have helped her figure out her own rescue?"

"Rose!" The Doctor shook his head, both hands coming forward in a gesture of pleading. "_I_ let her get taken, Rose. _I _let that happen. _I_ had to fix it."

"Doctor," she sighed, one hand raising to take his, then just hovering the space between them because he wasn't her Doctor and it really shouldn't have been her comforting him, it should have been River.

The Doctor saw her uncertainty and hurried to connect their palms, weave their fingers together, draw her closer with a simple tug of his wrist. "You understand, don't you, Rose? That I had to be the one to figure it out?"

He was pleading with her. If she hadn't known him so well, she might not have realized it, but she did know him. He was looking at her with infinitely sad eyes, with a slight pressure on her hand, willing her to say it was okay, that what he had done was okay. But it wasn't.

"Doctor, you don't always have to save us, you know? We, your companions, we've been known to get ourselves out of a tough spot once or twice."

"Yes, of course, Rose," he agreed quickly, but it sounded a lot more like placating.

Maybe now wasn't the time to get into this. Maybe he would understand her better if she had her Doctor explain it to him, remind him of the way he should treat his companions. Maybe she would be able to handle this better when he was here with her, safe, sound, picking apart this new Doctor just to make sure Rose didn't like him too much.

So, taking a breath, Rose asked, "Why would you come here?"

Her question startled the Doctor. He lowered his face so they were eye to eye, a habit none of his former selves had, as if this Doctor felt it was imperative to see exactly what the other person saw. "I came to help you, Rose. I'm worried about you. Bad Wolf . . . it shouldn't still be here."

The corner of her mouth quirked down. "Funny, I'm worried about you too. Both of you. But that wasn't what I meant."

The Doctor waved this away with a jerky movement that was so natural for this body. "What did I say about Bad Wolf? What did I tell you?" He was more than happy to switch topics. That's what was so great about Rose, she knew when to push and when to back off. If only he could get River to do the same thing, to not grate at him until he snapped at her, he was sure they would both prefer it.

Rose swung their hands again before tugging him after her toward the corner of the room, away from the sparking warmth of the fireplace.

It had taken months before the TARDIS was properly ready to fly, but the TARDIS had been ready to arrange itself before then. So, during the downtime, the Doctor and Rose had decorated each room, as it appeared, with the TARDIS's help. The corner Rose led him to harbored two sets of bean bags, one blue, one pink, just like the arm chairs.

The Doctor grinned. "Bean bags? I love a bean bag!" Releasing Rose's hand, he plopped himself readily down on the blue one.

"Glad you approve." Rose smiled, her tongue caught between her teeth. She sat down with less enthusiasm than his plop, a simple fall backward that landed her squarely in the center of her bean bag.

Across from one another, the Doctor fixed her with his grim face of determination so she would know he was serious. Rose had the audacity to laugh. "You look like you just ate a pear!"

He grimaced. "That is not something to joke about, Rose!"

"Well," she giggled, pointing to his features, "you do."

The Doctor raked a hand through his hair. "Rose, I'm trying to be serious, why is Bad Wolf still with you?"


End file.
